BANGKOK VIOLENCE AFTERMATH

Bangkok almost back to normal by Monday (updated on Saturday 22/05- 4:00 pm)

Zen Department Store on Saturday morning (photo Luc Citrinot)

By Luc Citrinot, etn | May 22, 2010

The situation in Bangkok continues to improve. On Saturday morning, cleaning teams were active around Siam Square and Rachaprasong collecting garbage, disinfecting side-walks and checking on the safety of infrastructure such as slytrain stations, escalators or electricity. From tomorrow, the Underground will operate from 8 am to 8 pm and will resume its normal hours from Monday. Skytrain services will start to operate again on Monday. The current curfew should be also lifted by tomorrow with shops resuming their normal opening hours.

It will however take time to erase the physical and moral scars generated by a week of extreme violence between the Army and anti-government forces took place. Shopping paradise Rachaprasong looked still like hell today with smokes still coming from Zen Department Store ruins at Central World Shopping Mall. The acre smell of smoke and putrified garbage is persistent in the air. Blackened side-walks and buildings fassades, destroyed telephone booths and advertising billboards, the rubbles of Siam Theater, one of the few avant-garde cinema surviving in Bangkok live a sad feeling and it will take time to see those sores disappearing.

Then, it seems that for many Thais, something is irreversibly gone. Many motocycle drivers, taxis and workers shops continue in fact to express their sympathy to the movement. The people cleaning rubbles and garbages at Central World are probably from the same region -Isaan mostly- than the Red Shirts protesters a week ago. Finding a half-burnt red flag in the garbage, a cleaning lady proudly rose it during a couple of seconds before throwing it in a garbage truck. Over the chaos, miraculously preserved advertising billboards offer a sharp contrast with the reality. On a couple of them, a handsome white skin Chinese-looking young Thai man advertises for a deodorant. A world away from dark Isaan workers busy to clean the streets.

Similar Posts:

• Bangkok is dragged into a civil war situation (Sunday update 4.00 pm Bangkok time)
• How about experiencing Bangkok these days ?
• Eccentric Money-Saving Methods
• Stores Trying to Lure Shoppers Right Before Christmas
• Surrender in Bangkok – Ratchaprasong is clear